If you say bots mainly need this to not see players into the dark places can't this be easily fixed for normal players as you just check the traceline and the player id hit to check there illumination level instead?

I also see a potential flaw with this design unless you cater for nightvision? Also you mention about following a player, that would be a bug within the sound system as well since the bot should roughly know where the player sound has stopped?

I dunno about your gaming style but the big centerid (Enemy) gives away where players are anyhow

What I mean, is that if you call GetEntityIllum() on a player edict, it works. BUT, if you call GetEntityIllum() on a bot edict, it returns 0. This is why bot coders have to be cautious around this issue. If they want to retrieve a bot's illumination value, they must call GetEntityIllum() on another edict than the bot's own edict. This is why we make dummy entities follow bots around when they walk (since calling GetEntityIllum() on these entities do work).

Anyway, it was an old bug of the HL engine, but perhaps it's been fixed now by the Valve guys. I haven't checked. Can you confirm the behaviour I'm saying here, or does it work differently ?

RACC home - Bots-United: beer, babies & bots (especially the latter)"Learn to think by yourself, else others will do it for you."

That is for sure a good idea, unfortunately it is never "tied" to the faces. You can have a face split in both with one half illuminated and another one in the dark. That would be quite a big hassle to take that in account

RACC home - Bots-United: beer, babies & bots (especially the latter)"Learn to think by yourself, else others will do it for you."

I know nothing about bot coding (and any C++ coding) and maybe I shouldn't post here and talking about something I know nothing, but maybe there is somewhere described the list of all HL functions not working for bots (but working correctly for human-players) and the list of all known workarounds made by bot coders to get their bots to work? I'm asking to prevent the situation the new bot coder is trying to open some door already opened by other. Since You guys are as "United" - maybe it's possible to put here some Your knowledge for other people? I'm thinking about something like the info in "wiki" or in some sticky thread like "What You have to know when You are trying to write Your bot for HL..."

i thought there was a way to create an entity (temp one) and give it no model. Then you change the position to the bots position and you can read the light info. There was something at the former botmans forums about that.

Yes, that's what I was doing too. You don't set it no model though, it must have a model for rendering illumination correctly. Instead you set it a model that fits inside the bot's model (so that nobody can see it). That's what I was doing and what I was telling T(+)rget to do but he doesn't like the fact of having to spawn and move another entity in the game (he thinks about lag issues). Personally I don't think the trouble caused is that big, but not everybody may agree.

RACC home - Bots-United: beer, babies & bots (especially the latter)"Learn to think by yourself, else others will do it for you."